nonpoint source

nonpoint source

[‚nän′pȯint ‚sȯrs]

(civil engineering)

A dispersed source of stormwater runoff; the water comes from land dedicated to uses such as agriculture, development, forest, and land fills and enters the surface water system as sheet flow at irregular rates.

Through case studies of acid rain, nonpoint source water pollution, toxic releases, and industrial recycling, he analyzes policy tools and outcomes, focusing on failure mechanisms or regulatory slippage and policy mismatches, and offers recommendations based on science and altered incentives.

The IG report acknowledges that the challenge of achieving nutrient reductions in the Mississippi-Atchafalaya Basin is complicated by the size of the Mississippi River watershed, which is the third-largest in the world; lack of Clean Water Act authority over nonpoint source pollution arising from agricultural activities; and competing environmental priorities.

Unlike pollution that comes from specific industrial factories, sewage treatment plants and other easily discernible 'points', nonpoint source pollution comes from many diffuse sources, but in the aggregate creates a formidable challenge for municipal, state and federal environmental and water control authorities.

The statute's failure to perform even more admirably than it has is due largely to a lack of legislative clarity in addressing the role of wetlands in preserving the integrity of aquatic ecosystems and to Congress's unwillingness to adopt, or force the states to adopt, measures to control nonpoint source pollution.

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